


Old Friend

by Chitarra



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Episode: s03e03 His Last Vow, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-04-04 01:32:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4121359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chitarra/pseuds/Chitarra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A "missing scene" in which shortly after John and Mary's wedding, Sherlock finds himself in the company of an old friend that he thought he'd never see again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Friend

Hello again, old friend, it’s been a long, long time… not that I missed you or anything. I knew you’d be here, but don’t flatter yourself into thinking I came here for you. I have my reasons for being here, and you were certainly not one of them. At least not until I saw you. I would’ve been perfectly happy to never see you again, but like a bad penny, you always turn up. I always knew someday I'd come walking back through your door. I never doubted that. Something made it inevitable.

I never did trust you. You hurt me like no other. You weaseled your way into my life and you almost took it from me. You only exacerbate the pain under the guise of solace, and then you leave me. You leave me alone, brimming with compunction and regret in the end for having been foolish enough to have anything to do with you, every time. And I knew you’d only hurt me, and I still know it now. Yet despite knowing it, here I am in the dark with you, with open arms, letting you worm your way back into my heart. That’s why I hated you just as much as I loved you.

I could’ve just ignored you. I didn’t even have to acknowledge your presence, but it seems as though I find myself acknowledging something else I really never have before. I spent so much of my life trying to convince myself that I was fine, that I didn’t need anyone, mainly because no one needed me. However after the events of the past few years, culminating in the events of John’s wedding, I can’t seem to deny it anymore… I’m lonely. And it hurts.

Even while I was away, I knew I’d be coming back someday. I knew that once Moriarty’s network was dismantled, I could come back… back to my friends, my family, my flat, my life… although it didn’t happen exactly as I’d expected. I don’t even know why I would believe they wouldn’t move on. They believed I was dead, what was there to wait for? Well, at least Anderson believed there was something. Anderson… I don’t even wanna go there, maybe some other time. But that’s what people do, they move on. They find other people, and they move on. Without me.

I’m happy for John and Mary. I’m happy that John… my partner in crime, my best friend, my brother… is happy. At least I’m trying to be. But I confess that my difficulty with this has little to do with jealousy. At least I think it doesn’t. Honestly, I don’t resent their happiness, I resent my loneliness. I resent having spent my entire life having to watch everyone else be happy with everyone else while I was perpetually alone. Why didn’t I deserve human connection like everyone else? What was so unpalatable about me that no one was ever willing to give me a chance? Was there no one out there willing to understand the difficulties I was having with this, and stick with me through them long enough to see what’s past them? Why am I deserving of only the heartbreak and loneliness that’s driven me back into your arms again after all these years, even though I know you don’t love me?

But that’s the way it’s always been. People come along, other people come along, they get together, and then forget about me. The situation always became me watching everyone else find each other, and no one ever finding me. The idea that someone could ever love me, the idea that someone could ever care about me enough to want me in their lives was such a foreign concept to me that by the time I realized that there was one person who did, it was too late. Operation Lazarus was already in motion and there was nothing I could do.

I suppose I’d just been treating her the way the people who were supposed to love me treated me, and I suppose I just thought it would go on like that between us forever. Never once did it cross my mind that it would change. I knew it in the back of mind, no matter how hard I tried to deny it, the truth is that I love her. I wasted so much of my life seeking out the love, care, and acknowledgement from everyone around me who refused to give it that I completely missed the fact that Molly Hooper had been giving it all along. And in return for giving me exactly what I’d been wanting all my life, I… it hurts too much to even think it. All it took for this realization to destroy my heart all over again was three words. Three little words that are now, and will forever be burned into my brain as the moment I realized how truly and utterly wrong I was, “I don’t count.” But now, it’s too late. She’s marrying Meat Dagger, and I missed the boat. I blew my chance. Mycroft always said I was an idiot.

Despite spending so much of my life behind a mask, trying to keep people from knowing the truth about me… and I’ve never admitted this to anyone but you… all I’ve ever wanted was for someone to come along and shatter all that to pieces. All I wanted was for someone to know me, to find me out, to discover what I’d been hiding about myself, and love me anyway so that I wouldn’t have to hide it anymore. Just when I was beginning to believe that this would never come along, it did. Twice. First, in the shape of Molly Hooper, and then again in the shape of John Watson. But just like everyone else, along came Tom and Mary, and I’m alone again.

But no matter how many times I’ve been hurt and abandoned, there seems to be nothing in this universe that can prove fatal to that little bit of hope that once again, someday, I might be loved and accepted for who and what I truly am, and that I can be different without having to be isolated for it. It will always be there, and that’s why it hurts.

Maybe Sally Donovan was right, maybe I am a freak. Maybe Anderson was right, maybe I am a psychopath. Maybe Mycroft was right, maybe I am an idiot. Maybe I was right, maybe I deserve you. Well, I may be a freak, psychopath, and idiot, and maybe I do deserve you, but I’m gonna tell you a little secret. Promise you won’t tell anyone? The hope never dies. No matter how fatally it’s wounded, even when I try to kill it myself, the hope never dies.

But this… this was a mistake. Every time I let you in, you only ever draw out the worst in me. I thought I was strong enough to resist you, I thought I was strong enough to be here for my intended purpose without seeing you, or without you seeing me, but I guess I’m not as strong as I thought I was. I should’ve known better than to get anywhere near you when I’m as grieved as I am right now because you only ever magnify the pain. You’re the best liar I’ve ever known, promising distraction, relief, rest. But you never deliver, yet I always fall for it. Before I even saw you, just the smell of you, unmistakably you, was too much for me to handle in such a fragile state as I was in. If I could remove you from my blood and return you to the needle you came from, I would do it in a heartbeat because this is too much pain. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t let you make a junkie of me again. I won’t.

So goodbye forever, Opium, my old friend. May we never meet again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From outside Sherlock’s mind palace came a familiar sound, piercing through the darkness that had been filling it. Fighting his way through the fog to find its source, he forced open his eyes to see that it was now morning, the sunlight was breaking its way through the tattered tarps that covered the windows, illuminating the ratty furniture and dirty floors, revealing the brightly colored paints that time had slowly peeled off of the cement walls.

He heard it again… though saying something strange, it was a voice he’d know anywhere, “The arse-end of the universe with the scum of the Earth. Look at me.” It was the voice of his partner in crime, his best friend, his brother… John. Although he was not yet sure if this was for real, just the sound of John’s voice was enough to once again revive that tiny little bit of shattered hope and bring it back to raging life. And with fire and fury, it was enough to send his “old friend” fleeing in terror from his veins.

There came a second voice, one Sherlock thought he might’ve heard before, but he wasn’t certain, as it said, “Have you come for me?”

In his usual acerbic yet joking tone, John responded to it, “D’you think I know a lot of people here?”

Sherlock forced himself to pick himself up from the grimy mattress on which he’d spent a majority of the night sprawled. He sat up and leaned on his elbow, turning around to see John just behind him, crouched on the floor next to a kid from whom the second voice came. “Ah, hello, John,” Sherlock greeted him drearily, but hopefully.

Startled, John straightened up a bit, dumbfounded at the sound of the unmistakable voice he just heard coming from behind him.

Pushing back the hood from his head, Sherlock admitted, “Didn’t expect to see you here.” As John turned around to look at him, Sherlock tried his best not to let on that the hope that had chased away that “old friend” had made its way through to ask, “Did you come for me, too?”

**Author's Note:**

> This was actually my first idea for a fic, but I could never seem to get it written properly... and honestly, I'm still not so sure it's written properly, but I tried my best. The idea was that you're not supposed to know who exactly Sherlock is talking to, who this "old friend" is, until the very end. I hope it's not either too vague or too obvious... I don't know, I guess I just thought it was a really cool idea, but I didn't have a whole lot of confidence in my ability to make that idea into an actual story. X-)
> 
> Some of the content was lifted from a Tumblr meta I wrote the night "The Sign of Three" aired for the first time called "The Hope Never Dies." http://chitarra10.tumblr.com/post/72403043957/the-hope-never-dies Then after seeing "His Last Vow," the idea for the fic hit me, but I just couldn't seem to make it happen... but a year and a half later, like I said, I'm still not so sure it's written properly, but I did the best I could with it. And yes, Sherlolly is my ship, so that's how it leans. :-)
> 
> So... I'm almost afraid to ask... what did you think? X-)


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